# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1863_S156
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

156 Church and Contemporary History.

...to grant, that our church might not be caught unprepared by the task of going its own way independently. It is the thought of a second catechumenate following first communion, issuing in an act — to be designated by the name of confirmation — of the establishment and confirmation of full members of the church, an act of the laying on of hands in the sense of a lay ordination. (!) Full ecclesiastical citizenship — consisting in the right of sponsorship, the right to have one's marriage blessed, a share in representing the interests of a church congregation, in the election of pastors, teachers, church elders or church councils, and of church representatives at synods — is to be granted only at a more mature age, through a special act and on the basis of an educative preparation; in such a way that those who, after this preparation, are not found ready, or who do not present themselves for the act, remain catechumens for the organized congregation, while nevertheless — so long as they do not otherwise make themselves unworthy of it — being communicant members of the church."

Pastor Brunn's institute is commended by Dr. Münkel in his Neues Zeitblatt of February 21 in the following words: „Now that the Methodists and Baptists have already done significant business among the Germans, the Episcopalians too now wish to try their fortune, and there will be no lack of money or men for it. Shall we here in Germany look on so idly? The harvest is rich enough and lies nearer to us than any other. Congregations can be gathered here without difficulty, if only preachers are sent out and supported in their equipping. May this occasion serve once more to call emphatic attention to the institute for training American preachers which Pastor Brunn — so well suited for the purpose — has established at Steeden (Nassau) and directs with great self-sacrifice. He sent a company of preachers to sea in August of last year and is preparing a new company. It is greatly to be wished that this institute find the support it deserves, and that the work of his love be furthered by our own serving love."

Chiliasm. A chiliastic writing published in Berlin, „Our Present and Future. By K. Griesemann," is reviewed as follows in the Saxon Church and School Gazette of Feb. 26: „In spite of so many disappointments, the apocalyptic slide-rule is once again taken in hand here, and, almost down to the very date, the future is unveiled — through interpretation of the Revelation of John, and also of Daniel — with a certainty as if one had sat in our Lord God's own council chamber. According to this reading we are living in the second section of the antichristian age, which runs its course in three main acts, and — to say nothing of all else — might expect, possibly after severe struggles, in the year 1866, chiefly through the merit of a Prussia rediscovering itself, the complete overthrow of the Beast (Napoleon) and the dawn of world peace; afterward a great, general awakening of Christendom, and so forth; and in opposition to this a fearful growth of the antichristian spirit, until everything is ripe for the third and final antichristian act, the personal incarnation of Satan in the form of the last Buonaparte, probably Napoleon VII (about the year 1986); and at last the dawn of the thousand-year kingdom of peace, which is sought to be demonstrated from various passages of Scripture, with and without exegetical art."

The Study and Use of Luther's Writings. On this subject Prof. Dr. Harnack of Erlangen speaks in the preface to his work „Luther's Theology" (Erlangen: Bläsing, 1862), among other things, as follows: „Among the most gratifying phenomena in the field of theological scholarship of our time must be counted the efforts directed toward a renewed and thorough study of Luther's theology. For too long men have been content to make use of his writings chiefly for practical and ascetic purposes, or to exploit them piecemeal from arbitrary points of view and compile sayings from them according to various perspectives. To be sure, Luther's teaching lives on in the Lutheran Church and theology; in its essential content it has become the confessional property of the church, has passed over into ecclesiastical dogmatics, and has here also found a more genuine understanding than many nowadays...